Without money, what is the point of being a traitor?

Chapter 210 I also want to show off

Wang Chang watched Qi Yanming leave, and actually felt a sense of accomplishment.

Let’s look at Pei Yuan again.

It's so damn enviable.

Wang Dasima, who is over fifty years old, feels a sense of depression in his heart.

This is what a man should do!
I also want to pretend...

Seeing that Wang Chang was distracted, Pei Yuan asked in a louder voice, "What's going on here? How many people did you invite, and how many came?"

Wang Chang finally came to his senses and said quickly, "We have invited all the people from Nanzhi, and we have also hinted at the garrisons near the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office. However, many people think that there will not be any war in the south in the short term, so there is no need to clear the vacancies too early. Only these ten or so commanders are willing to get involved in this matter."

Pei Yuan nodded. "It's similar to what I thought. The timid ones think this is a chance to get out of this unscathed. The bold ones want to keep the vacancies for another two years."

Pei Yuan thought about it and said, "They don't know how to live or die. Let them do whatever they want."

Pei Yuan asked again, "What did you tell them? Don't leave any evidence behind."

Wang Chang confessed honestly, "I just wanted to tell those people that I should retire in the next two years. So I planned to make some preparations and enjoy life in the future. So I organized this game..."

Wang Da Sima was ready to cash in on his power at the end of his official career, and take the blame to clean up the accounts for the various guards.

This is reasonable, and the commanders of the various garrisons will naturally not be suspicious.

Wang Chang continued, "These ten or so families have contributed a total of 17,000 taels of silver. Some contributed more, some contributed less. When this matter is settled, we will give it to the thousand households for review."

"Oh?" Pei Yuan smiled after hearing this. "Sort out the accounts. They will be useful later."

After thinking for a while, he said, "Give 10,000 taels to Song Chunniang. She will know how to arrange it. You can take the other 7,000 taels. If you can't get the position of Right Censor-in-Chief this time, keep it for your retirement."

Wang Chang's heart tightened when he heard this.

If he could get the position of Right Censor-in-Chief and then be sent out as a governor as Pei Yuan had imagined, he would not only be able to leave the village safely but also be able to take the opportunity to make a fortune.

What are a few thousand taels of silver?
Wang Chang said quickly, "It is inevitable that Qianhu will have to spend money to run this matter. It would be safer to use the money to build relationships."

Pei Yuan waved his hand. Although he was greedy for money, he would not take all the money.

Pei Yuan asked again, "How are the Dahe Guard and Huai'an Guard arranged?"

Wang Chang said, "These two garrisons suffered a loss last year. They refused to leave Shanyang County on the grounds that they had few soldiers and generals and had to defend the city."

Pei Yuan thought for a moment and said, "Send a letter to urge them to do something."

Wang Chang reminded, "I'm afraid it's useless. They reported a lot of losses themselves last year, and they don't want to get involved this time."

Pei Yuan smiled and said, "It's okay, just send a few more letters."

Pei Yuan didn't care whether Dahewei and Huai'anwei sent out troops or not.

He also knew that the two guards would not get involved in this matter. They had just cleaned up some of the losses last year, so why would they participate in a battle that was doomed to fail?

Pei Yuan asked Wang Chang to write the letter, but his real purpose was not to ask them to send troops, but to ask them not to send troops.

For someone who is pretending to be asleep, the more you call him, the deeper he sleeps.

If Huai'an Wei and Dahe Wei can tie their own hands in Shanyang County, Qi Yanming's trip to Yancheng will face less resistance.

The plan goes through!
Pei Yuan then asked Wang Chang, "Do you still remember the 80,000 taels of silver I brought here?"

Wang Chang nodded and waited for Pei Yuan to continue speaking.

Pei Yuan no longer wanted to be tied down by this task. As long as he could make a fortune from speculation, this money would lose its greatest significance.

The previous trick by He Huan, the commander of Huai'an Guard, gave him a good inspiration, so he instructed Wang Chang, "After the feint attack tomorrow night, you report the losses to the court, mention the tax silver, and then secretly suggest that the court allocate the silver to the Ministry of War to reward the soldiers on the front line."

"The imperial court will be horrified to see such heavy losses here, and will be terrified that Jiangnan will be lost. They will most likely agree to your request."

Pei Yuan continued, "After you get the imperial court's reply, keep it secret for now. Wait until I inform you, then show it to others."

"When the time comes, you will divide the commercial tax of 80,000 taels of silver among them according to the proportion of their contribution of 17,000 taels of silver."

Wang Chang listened to Pei Yuan's arrangement and couldn't help but take a breath. "What the captain means is..."

Pei Yuan said calmly, "Yes, that's what I mean. I want to let those commanders know that we will not treat those who are willing to obey us badly."

Wang Chang thought about it in his mind and felt numb all over.

He thought about it silently, but couldn't figure out how many things Pei Qianhu had planned in such a short time.

The fake fight with the Bazhou rebels was nominally a planned defeat in order to clear some vacancies in the garrisons in Jiangnan.

Because of this incident, the two men conspired to take 17,000 taels of silver from these people.

But the most important demand was to forge a military achievement for Wang Chang, so that he would have the opportunity to be awarded the title of Right Censor-in-Chief and be sent out as a governor.

In order to allow Wang Chang to gain this military merit, Pei Yuan designed a situation and made the Bazhou Army go south for a circle and then return north.

Going south was to complete the task of settling the accounts of the garrisons, and returning north was to achieve Wang Chang's military merit in repelling the enemy.

In order to make this military achievement look solid, Pei Yuan thoughtfully added the credit for killing Qi Yanming, the bandit leader of Bazhou.

During this process, Captain Pei not only let Qi Yanming come and accept the favor, but also let a group of guards take the blame for falsely reporting military achievements without their knowledge, so as to tie the two parties together as much as possible.

As for the division of the 80,000 taels of silver, it was a stroke of genius.

Taking advantage of the "great defeat" tomorrow night, we can force the imperial court to hand over the 80,000 taels of commercial tax silver.

In this way, Pei Yuan can be freed from the task of escorting tax silver, and those obedient commanders can also receive huge rewards.

If the 80,000 taels of silver were divided according to the investment ratio of the 17,000 taels of silver, then this would mean that these commanders not only settled their accounts, but also received more than four times the return!

How would these commanders feel? How would those commanders who did not come feel?
Wang Chang could almost foresee that his influence in Nanzhi would increase rapidly in the future.

And Wang Chang knew all this.

As for how Captain Pei had achieved the current situation and how many secret moves he had made that he was unaware of, Wang Chang didn't even dare to think about it.

Wang Chang was just thinking about it when he heard Pei Yuan sigh and say to himself, "It's easy to talk about your side, but I don't know how the business is going."

Wang Chang was even more speechless for a moment.

Okay, so this is something I can do easily?

Pei Yuan looked at Wang Chang and said, "You go back first. If there are any changes, I will let Chen Toutie and Cheng Leixiang inform you."

Wang Chang responded, "Okay!"

Pei Yuan turned his horse and walked away. After taking a few steps and thinking for a while, he finally felt that he should leave some room for maneuver, so he turned back and said to Wang Chang who was still standing there watching him, "Count Huai'an Guard and Dahe Guard as well."

Having said that, he rode away again.

Returning to the Bazhou cavalry who were on full alert, Pei Yuan could clearly feel that the atmosphere was slightly off.

He glanced at Qi Yanming.

Qi Yanming's face turned red. He looked at Pei Yuan and wanted to say something, but was afraid of causing more trouble.

Pei Yuan had already expected this.

He asked Qi Yanming to lie and say that he witnessed the two sides discussing the night attack tomorrow night, but Qi Yanming, a rough man, could not withstand the questioning of Zhao Sui, a smart man? Moreover, he did not talk about the details of the night attack just now.

But Qi Yanming couldn't say it clearly. What the three of them discussed was that Pei Yuan had left him a way out.

How do others see him then?

So Qi Yanming was left speechless in front of everyone by Zhao Sui's question.

The bandit leader of the Bazhou Army, after having a secret meeting with the Minister of War of the imperial court, behaved like this when he came back.

If there weren't so many people around, even Liu Qi would probably ask Qi Yanming a few questions.

Pei Yuan naturally couldn't let this little problem affect his plans for tomorrow night. Seeing Zhao Sui approaching to ask, he smiled and said, "Nanda Sima and I haven't seen each other for many days. We chatted a little, and it may involve a lot of names. Marshal Qi must be confused."

Only then did Qi Yanming come to his senses.

By the way, if I don’t want to talk about serious matters, I can also use Pei Yuan’s idle chatter to make excuses!
He said quickly, "Yes, yes, yes, what was it? A eunuch is going to replace Gu Dayong, and something else. Oh, that Lu Wan is going to be the Minister of War when he returns..."

When Liu Qi and Zhao Sui heard this, they both breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out that they were just gossip. No wonder when I asked Qi Yanming about the details of their discussion, he couldn't answer.

This is not surprising.

Pei Yuan waited for Qi Yanming to say the key words, and then added, "It's Lu Ting."

Then he emphasized, "It was the eunuch Lu Ting."

Qi Yanming clapped his hands quickly and said, "That's it, that's what I'm talking about!"

Having found an excuse, Qi Yanming quickly covered up what happened and complained to Zhao Sui, "I said, they didn't talk about much serious stuff. I can't remember these messy names and gossips."

However, Zhao Sui was not as careless as Qi Yanming. He quickly realized that these two pieces of news were closely related to their Bazhou army.

Gu Dayong is the governor in charge of military affairs, and Lu Wan is responsible for decision-making.

The personnel changes of these two people may very likely affect the fate of their Bazhou Army.

Zhao Sui knew that he could not get anything out of Qi Yanming, so he said to Pei Yuan, "I didn't expect that Brother Pei is so familiar with the high-ranking officials of the court."

Pei Yuan smiled and said perfunctorily, "Because I have always had a good reputation, they are willing to share some information with me."

Zhao Sui hesitated for a moment and asked Pei Yuan, "I am somewhat interested in the intelligence that Brother Pei just obtained. Could you please tell me briefly about it, Brother Pei?"

Pei Yuan smiled and said, "No problem. Grand Marshal Wang told us that eunuch Lu Ting will make a great contribution in the near future and completely replace Gu Dayong's position. He also said that after this incident is over, Lu Wan should return to the court, and his assistant minister of the Ministry of War should be promoted, and he will probably become the Minister of War."

Pei Yuan said this and deliberately asked Qi Yanming, "Is that so?"

Qi Yanming thought about it and realized that it was similar to what he heard, so he nodded and said, "Yes, that's what you said."

Zhao Sui felt a little strange. No matter how big of a mouth Wang Chang was, why did he tell "you" about the important matters at the front? Shouldn't this be something he and Pei Yuan chatted about privately?
However, Zhao Sui did not have the energy to think about these things in detail. After a brief consideration, he said to Liu Qi, "It is a good thing that the court wants to change generals before the battle. Although they have a lot of troops now, they have the Beijing camp, the border troops, the local guards, and the young and strong recruited temporarily. The channels for supplying food and grass are in chaos."

"If the governor-general's military affairs officer is replaced and Lu Wan also returns to the court, I estimate that the court's troops will be paralyzed for several months, which will give us time to advance into Huguang."

Liu Qi laughed and said, "It seems that God has opened his eyes. Well, after this matter is settled, we will advance to Huguang."

Pei Yuan briefly talked about tomorrow's night attack.

In fact, there is not much to say.

At that time, the Bazhou rebels will send out multiple groups of troops to light fires and beat drums, making loud noises, creating the appearance of attacking Taoyuan County!
Because it was late at night, the people in the city would not dare to send out troops and would just hold their ground.

The Bazhou army could take the opportunity to burn down the camps of the government troops outside. When all the people in the city heard the sound of drums and gongs and saw the fire that burned half the sky red, they would have done what they should do.

Afterwards, Wang Chang would block the four gates in the name of martial law and not allow civilians and officials to leave the city.

Then let each commander take people to create traces.

Then we can report to the court that we had a fierce battle with the Bazhou rebels and lost a lot of soldiers and equipment...

Pei Yuan concluded, "With this arrangement, the troops of both sides will never come into direct contact. When we sound the horn and set fire at night, they will stay in the city. When they leave the city during the day, we will have withdrawn our troops back to Suqian."

"I have also made an agreement with Wang Da Sima that if the soldiers of both sides meet, it means that there is a change in the plan, and all follow-up will be cancelled."

"This way, you can rest assured, and they can rest assured too."

The leaders who were listening in felt that Pei Yuan's arrangements were very thoughtful.

The way of ending the plan neatly and quickly as soon as the soldiers of both sides met gave them a great sense of security. For the Bazhou Army, they were not afraid of encountering government troops, but they were afraid of an unknown enemy.

Liu Qi glanced at Zhao Sui, and seeing that he didn't say anything, he praised, "Brother Pei, your arrangement is appropriate."

It was already late, and everyone hurried back to Suqian.

On the second day, the troops of Bazhou set out one after another.

Zhao Sui obviously had something up his sleeve.

He planned to mobilize 20,000 troops to launch a feint attack on Taoyuan, and also prepared another 50,000 troops as support.

Qi Yanming offended Zhao Sui because of the matter of Miss Jiao, and Qi Yanming's actions yesterday were unclear, so Zhao Sui deliberately arranged for Qi Yanming to lead 10,000 people to do the hard work of attacking the city.

He personally led another 10,000 people to set fire to the camp outside the city.

The 50,000 reserve troops were led by Liu Qi himself to provide support to them.

He privately told Liu Qi that if Pei Yuan was up to no good, he would most likely set an ambush in the camp outside the city, and he had to do this personally. If anything unexpected happened, he would have to prepare for a decisive battle immediately.

Pei Yuan silently observed the troop movements in the camp and didn't care about it at all.

Because the real battle is in people's hearts.

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(End of this chapter)